By Kevin Potvin

The approach to Oceanview Conference Room Number 3, deep inside the Pan Pacific Hotel, is not simple. You first have to stuff yourself into the south-bound #20 bus on Commercial Drive, get off at Broadway Skytrain station, take the train to the end of the line at Waterfront Station, exit out the west of that old CPR building to cross the windswept plaza and cut through the lobby of the Vancouver Sun building, which leads you to the wide, dangerous driveway of the Pan Pacific Hotel, where you have to slip past a phalanx of security guards, valet parkers and bellhops to tread through the vast undifferentiated lobby of the joint hotel/cruise-ship port/convention centre complex to find an obscured set of escalators, and then another set, before emerging into the first hints of a hotel—a lobby bistro, a concierge desk, brass luggage carts hither and thither.

The occasion is a luncheon hosted by the Council of Tourist Associations of British Columbia, and the guest speaker is Kevin Falcon, honourable minister of transportation.

He’s been asked to speak about provincial government plans to invest heavily—to the tune of $3 billion—in transportation infrastructure around BC, most notably in Greater Vancouver, with a twinning of the biggest, most heavily-used bridge, the Port Mann, and a doubling of the freeway from that bridge into Vancouver, from six to 12 lanes.

The tourism industry welcomes the investment of public funds, but there is considerable public opposition to the plan, mostly because it doesn’t seem to be in keeping with the general trend toward trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also because the exits of this doubled-in-capacity freeway and the destination of all those extra cars—downtown Vancouver—sit on opposite sides of the neighbourhoods of East Vancouver.

The crowd of about 70 tourist association officials is predictably a permanent-press sport jacket and blue pant-suit type crowd exhorted by the MC to pass their business cards around their tables—“I think a great tradition started by the Vancouver Board of Trade” she opines—which they do, leaving everyone with a mittful of cards they don’t know what to do with. There are two men who look east Asian, none who appear south Asian or anything else, leaving the room about 97% white, the room being filled with the chief representatives of the industry meant to welcome people from all over the world to the planet’s most racially diverse political jurisdiction. Or so we like to tell visitors.

Rising after lunch was served is C Michael Campbell (the “C” is so he isn’t confused with the Premier’s brother, Michael Campbell, the perpetually breathless and exasperated business columnist in The Vancouver Sun), who is president of the COTA, a surprisingly no-nonsense heavy-set type of scowler you’d more likely see at a Woodworkers’ Union conference. As he pointed out in his introductory remarks, transportation issues represent by far the most important aspect of the tourism industry. Literature spread on the linen-covered tables made the point: Canada wide, 36% of all tourism spending is on transportation: $11 billion on air travel, and $5 billion on gasoline for visitors’ cars. In BC, $1.9 billion was spent in 2004 by tourists getting to and from BC, and getting around the province once here. On that note, he brought up Kevin Falcon, first listing off the usual type of accolades for a typical right-of-centre elected representative: president of the young conservatives, head of some local Chamber of Commerce, BA in arts, real estate license, that sort of thing.

Kevin Falcon, looking young and cheery, seemingly the product of a never-troubled life, his face bearing no characteristic signs of any past worry, distress, trauma, or any kind of character at all, kicks off with a light-hearted self-deprecating remark about the length of his accomplishments, and how boring they sound when read out—“Har, har!”—before getting straight down to business: a very polished video, complete with a rockin’ beat sound track updated enough to suit the tastes of the middle-aged middle class, the type who can afford the $300 tickets to see The Rolling Stones, the nasty rebels!

The video is all about ships, trains, planes and cars, but not about buses or bikes or walking shoes. It speaks of doubling tourism revenue by 2015, but fails to mention the peak oil phenomenon, which threatens to triple again the price of a barrel of oil by 2015. The goods to be moved by all the new infrastructure, in addition to tourists, is oil and gas most prominently, and even cars, imported into BC, an odd mention I thought, as if begging me to shout out: “greenhouse gas emitters all!”

I was the only media there, sent to a row of six empty chairs arranged at the back of the room, well away from any tables. (Not to worry, I chowed down a curry beef pocket and granola bar on the bus on the way). There was certainly no protestors. Nonetheless, a good portion of Falcon’s talk had to do with the “controversial” plans of his government, and it seemed the more quizzical the looks on his audience’s faces, the more he delved into this confusing line of thought. “Protestors are normal,” he assured them, “there are always people who think we should not do that, but we will ensure these projects will go forward, and we will hear from the public, but at the end of the day, we will ensure these things get done,” he rambled, as though talking to a room of expectant pavement and cement contractors craning to hear above the din of an angry and shouting mob outside. But it was quiet, just him talking, just me making notes at the back.

“Transportation,” he finished, “is the one major issue that comes forward at every tourism board meeting.” But not once, in the introduction, in his talk, in the slick video, or in questions (written on slips of paper to be vetted by the MC), was the rising cost of transportation fuel—the preoccupation of most of the world these days, and arguably the cause of the war in Iraq—mentioned. It was asked on a slip of paper—mine, saying “Would you comment on government planning regarding rising fuel costs due to peak oil”—but the MC chose not to pose it to the minister, the only question not posed to him, if my count of how many slips of paper were collected around the room was accurate.

The biggest problem, according to Falcon, the problem about which he promised immediate and effective action, had to do with taxis, specifically, how Vancouver taxi drivers sometimes pass on lengthy trips to Surrey at rush hour (Falcon’s home suburb) because they need to bring the cars in for shift change with waiting nightshift drivers. “I don’t care about the drivers, I don’t care about their shift change, I just want a taxi to Surrey!” he gesticulated broadly, his cherub face reddening under his coifed hair. Most of the room just stared, vaguely alarmed at his rising passion. “Our taxi industry is an embarrassment!” he shouted. “We’re going to fix that!”

Whatever. I checked to see if my bus pass was still valid for my ride home, and I slipped out. The organizer who arranged my media pass outside the room asked if the minister addressed my question; he said he’d seen that I had passed a piece of paper to the person collecting them inside the room. “Nope,” I said, handing him back my media pass. Why should greenhouse gasses and peak oil concern the BC tourism industry?